Czechoslovak Government Plans Anti-jewish Legislation

November 20, 1938

PRAHA (Nov. 18)

The Czechoslovak Government will promulgate anti-Jewish legislation, it was reliably learned today, shortly after the forthcoming presidential elections to name a successor to Dr. Eduard Benes, who resigned after cession of the Sudetenland to Germany. The legislation, it was understood, will include a numerous nullus for Jews in the administration, journalism and the arts. It will also provide for a five per cent numerous Clausus in the professions and trade, and a prohibition of mixed marriages.

Proponents of the legislation, it was believed, will be the new Czechoslovak “National Party,” which has been organized through a merger of five groups in the Government’s parliamentary majority. The party’s announced aim is to convert the nation into an “authoritarian democracy.” Its program, as broadcast yesterday, includes promise of rapid solution of the “question of emigration, particularly Jewish emigration.”

Slovakian Premier Dr. Joseph Tiso has under consideration a plan submitted to him by the Palestine Colonization Company for the settlement in Palestine of Slovakian Jews. The plan, outlined in an interview with the Premier by Dr. E. Soskin, chairman of the company, has been approved in principle by the autonomous Slovakian Government.